Report: Fake school threat started with dating app, dispute over hat, chair

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The fake threat that shut down Godfrey-Lee Public Schools for a day was prompted by a dating app meetup that went sour and a conflict over a hat and chair, according to a Wyoming Police Department report.

Nikole Pipoly, 28, is charged with filing a false police report in the incident that prompted Godfrey-Lee to close down for the day on Monday, May 13.

Woman charged in threat that closed Godfrey-Lee district

Her attorney, Damian Nunzio, declined an interview but told Target 8 that his client is innocent of the charges.

Pipoly, who is a licensed social worker, was employed by the Family Outreach Center in Grand Rapids but worked as a clinician on a contract basis in one of Godfrey-Lee’s elementary schools.

The Family Outreach Center told Target 8 that Pipoly is no longer employed there.

Godfrey-Lee Public Schools: Reported threat was ‘not credible’

In the police report obtained by Target 8, a Wyoming police officer summarized Pipoly’s initial claim that a man she’d met on a dating app was threatening to “shoot up” the school.

“Nikole Pipoly was threatened by Nicholas Surman via phone call,” the officer wrote of Pipoly’s allegation, which was later deemed false. “Nicholas told Nikole he was going to rape her and come shoot up Godfrey-Lee tomorrow (5/13/2024) if he did not receive his hat back.”

Wyoming police found no evidence that Surman made any threats at all and noted that Pipoly’s statement changed from her initial claim.

Surman himself sat down with Target 8, calling the whole ordeal “one of the craziest, most bizarre” things he’s ever experienced.

“I don’t understand it,” Surman said. “I still don’t. It doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever … the thought process behind why she took things to the level she took them, because this is somebody that I only met one time, that I spent a couple hours with. I don’t know her.”

It started, said Surman, when the two connected on the dating app Hinge, and Pipoly invited Surman to a gathering on the porch of her Grand Rapids home.

Surman said at one point in the evening, Pipoly took his Supreme brand hat, and he ended up leaving it at her home.

He said over the next couple days, he tried repeatedly to connect with Pipoly to retrieve his hat — with no luck.

“Talked with a couple buddies,” recalled Surman, “and I’m like, ‘Well, she’s got an expensive hat of mine. It might be funny to go over and grab a chair.'”

Surman recorded himself approaching Pipoly’s door a few days after the porch party and pushing her Ring doorbell.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” Surman said when Pipoly did not answer the door. “But I need to borrow a chair. So, I guess when you need the chair back … you can come over and bring me the hat … so, thank you.”

Surman told Target 8 he figured they’d make the exchange and that would be the end of it.

“(Or) if we end up dating and getting married, it’s a good story to tell our kids one day if nothing else,” Surman said.

Instead, Pipoly contacted Grand Rapids police and reported Surman had stolen her chair.

Then, according to the Wyoming police report, Pipoly told a friend and coworker at Godfrey-Lee that “Nicholas had threatened to come to the school and shoot her if he did not get his hat back.”

Later, when Pipoly denied telling police Surman had threatened to shoot up the school, a detective confronted her with an earlier text exchange between Pipoly and the first responding officer.

“I then asked Nikole if she remembered the text conversation between her and Ofc. Klaassen and she stated, ‘Yes,'” wrote the investigator. “I read the text conversation out loud to Nikole. Ofc. Klaassen said, ‘Do you have any video or recordings of (Surman) saying he is going to shoot up the school?’ Nicole responded, ‘Unfortunately no, that was on the phone.'”

But police said they analyzed Surman’s phone and found no record such a phone call ever occurred.

Wyoming police closed out the case, but Surman wanted to hold Pipoly accountable for her allegedly false claims.

“Nicholas came to the Wyoming Police Department and advised that he wanted to press charges against Nikole for making a false report of a terroristic threat,” wrote the detective on the case.

After further investigation, Wyoming police turned the case over to Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker, and he authorized a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report against Pipoly.

If convicted, Pipoly would face up to 93 days in jail and/or a $500 fine.

“This is a very serious thing that she did. I want people to know you cannot go and make false accusations against another individual. When that kind of thing happens, somebody needs to be held responsible, especially when it’s involving hundreds of innocent families,” Surman said, referring to the closing of Godfrey-Lee for a day. “Hundreds of families had to take a last-minute day off basically to stay home with their children for a falsified threat.”

Surman believes Pipoly also had him banned from Hinge and Tinder.

“I’ve never had any problems on the dating apps,” he said. “And honestly, if that’s the kind of person you’re going to meet on the dating apps, then I’m probably better off not being on there. So, anyone I was talking to on the dating apps, I apologized that I disappeared. That is why.”

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